William Cheshire wins Designer of Excellence

Jewellery designer William Cheshire scooped the coveted Houlden Designer of Excellence Award at The Jewellery Show in Birmingham yesterday.

The designer was singled out by retailer members of the Houlden Group as their favourite designer of the year from the selection of jewellers at The Design Quarter of The Jewellery Show. His work will now form part of a travelling selling exhibition in 2012 that will visit the buying group’s retailer member’s stores.

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Houlden director Keith Gill was at the show to present the award and spoke warmly of the judges’ reasoning behind picking Cheshire listing his “attention to detail, careful construction, lots of thought and a lot of passion”.

Cheshire took to the stage at the Pandora Catwalk Cafe at The Jewellery Show to collect his award and make a short speech. He said: “I’ve got such a great bunch of friends from working in the jewellery industry and moments like this make it all the more worthwhile.”

The Houlden Group also highly commended jewellery designer Cindy Dennis Mangan shortly before presenting the award to Cheshire. Gill addresses the designer in while on stage and said “your passion, desire and designs left us all breathless”.

Gill also spoke warmly of the talent to be found within the Design Quarter at The Jewellery Show, which has increased in size by 50% on 2011’s show. He said: “To say that we were blown away would be an understatement. There was a lot of deliberation.”

The Houlden Designer of Excellence Award was given out for the first time at The Jewellery Show 2011 when Sarah Ho of SHO picked up the award. She has since credited the win with “really launching the brand” in an interview with Professional Jeweller in the February issue of the magazine which can be picked up from The Jewellery Show free of charge on stand U07 in Hall 17, just opposite the Tresor Paris bus.